Protecting students online involves much more than just blocking troublesome keywords and dangerous URLs. School administrators need a tool that can help them act precisely, with context, and provide next-level control. With the latest GoGuardian Admin updates, you don’t need to look any further for a tool to meet the evolving needs to keep your district safe and secure.

The new GoGuardian Admin features are designed to help IT teams:

• Filter more precisely and with even greater customization
  
  
• Instantly detect and block inappropriate images
  
  
• Stay focused on what matters most with alert allow lists

DNS Precision Filtering: Filter smarter, troubleshoot faster

When every minute of instructional time counts, over-blocking can do more harm than good. Blocking websites teachers rely on disrupts lessons, breaks instructional flow, and forces educators to waste valuable time contacting IT for access.

On the other hand, if filtering rules are too loose, harmful or inappropriate content can slip through, putting students at risk and creating distractions in the classroom.

DNS Precision Filtering gives you the insight and control to strike the perfect balance, ensuring the right content is accessible to the right users, at the right time. That’s why we’ve made the following updates to help admins be both more comprehensive in who they can filter, and more granular in how they do it:

• Customized filtering and granular control: Create customized, group-level filtering rules for different user categories (staff, students, guests, and more) via custom IP ranges to get the most granular level of filtering.
  
  
• Redesigned DNS dashboard: Interactive charts and data tables give visibility into:
  
  
  
  • Network, subnet, and category traffic
    
    
  • Internal and external IPs
    
    
  • Canonical Name (CNAME) reporting, helping you see redirected domain activity
    
    
• Agent awareness: Prevent conflicts by allowing agent-filtered users to bypass DNS rules, reducing overlap and errors.
  
  
• User identification for DNS on-prem: Now includes usernames, email addresses, and internal IPs in browsing logs — giving admins more context and control.

With these improvements, filtering is more flexible and precise and troubleshooting becomes faster and more data-driven. Admins get deeper clarity into where traffic is going and why, allowing them to protect learners more effectively without disrupting teaching.

Image filtering in Smart Alerts: Protection without performance impact

Filtering words and phrases is one thing; images require a whole different level of scrutiny. Inappropriate visual elements can do just as much, if not more, harm to students who may not even be seeking out such content. We’ve built in new features that ensure learners are protected in myriad ways, including:

• Instant image detection is built into Smart Alerts
  
  
• Customizable blocking options during alert setup
  
  
• Clear feedback for students in the form of images being replaced with a solid color block and an explanation
  
  
• Enhanced visibility for admins:
  
  
  
  • Browsing activity shows a “partial block” notification when images are filtered
    
    
  • Alerts specify whether they were triggered by proxy, explicit text, or images
    
    
  • The reason for image blocking is always visible

Now, admins can rest assured that students are browsing in a way that’s safe and informative, without the risk of viewing non-educational material.

Smart Alerts Allowlist: Focus on what matters most

Say goodbye to false positives. With the new Allowlist tab in Smart Alerts, you can now prevent alerts from triggering on trusted, district-approved sites and tools.

• Add/remove URLs directly in a dedicated Allowlist tab
  
  
• Coming soon: Allowlist image sources for even more refined control

You can fully trust GoGuardian Admin to catch what matters, so you can focus on everything else.

Also new: See who blocked what

If your school uses both GoGuardian Admin and GoGuardian Teacher, you can now view which teacher and Scene blocked a student from accessing a site. This new feature appears in both Browsing Activity and the Student Report, giving admins and support teams even more context.

One platform for total protection

At GoGuardian, we believe K–12 filtering should be powerful, precise, and practical. These latest updates to GoGuardian Admin deliver:

• Smarter filtering across all devices
  
  
• Instant image protection
  
  
• Clear, actionable alerts
  
  
• Unmatched DNS visibility

As your partner in student protection, it’s our mission to continue to find innovative ways to ensure the safety of the young scholars you serve every day. Leave the blocking to us while you keep making a difference in the lives of students.